


first love/late spring

by MissSwing



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Post-High School, Slow Burn, i'm using a lot of characters from other fandoms but this is decidedly not a crossover, mostly canon? but i've taken quite a few liberties
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 15:39:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13461309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSwing/pseuds/MissSwing
Summary: Quinn and Rachel haven't seen each other since high school when Quinn's fiancee stumbles into the restaurant where Rachel has worked since she left Lima. This chance encounter pulls them back into the same orbit, and uncovers feelings they had both hoped would stay buried.





	first love/late spring

It’s only 7am and Quinn is already exhausted.

Her neck hurts from falling asleep on the couch, and she can feel a stress headache building as her fianc ée refuses to  _ please, let it go until I get home _ .

“I’m not saying we should throw ourselves an engagement party, but I’ve made bigger deals about passing Spanish than you want to about the biggest decision we’ve ever made.”

Quinn starts to brush her teeth to avoid answering, but that can only last so long, especially when she can feel Annie’s eyes on her. She rinses and crosses the bathroom to where Annie is leaning against the door frame.

“I want  _ us _ to make a big deal out of it. I don’t want it to belong to anyone else.” As soon as she says it, Quinn knows it was a mistake; she can barely handle touching that mentality on a good day.

“Is that really what this is about? Because, honestly, I thought—I hoped—we were past that.”

“I’m...working on it. I trust you more than I trust anyone, and can’t that be enough, at least for now?”

Annie takes a deep breath, and Quinn winces at how relieved she is when her alarm cuts her off.

“You’re always going to be enough,” Annie says, with so much tenderness that Quinn, not for the first time, desperately wishes she could be the open and proud person she deserves. “Have a good day, we can talk about this later.”

Quinn tilts her chin up with one finger, and presses a soft kiss onto the familiar, bubblegum flavored lips that have become her anchor.

***

After years of being trapped in Lima, Quinn never thought she would stay in one place long enough to know the streets well enough to make her commute on autopilot, but she and Annie have lived in Washington Heights for two years, and she has almost overcome the overwhelming urge to disrupt the peace before it can be taken away from her. She lets her muscle memory take her to the train, and lets her mind wander back to the night they met.

Quinn was a junior at Yale when her friend told her about “this really amazing girl” who would be “perfect” for her. She had only been out as a lesbian for a year, but it was long enough for her to have been through an unfortunate number of bad setups. She wasn’t optimistic; she agreed to appease her friend, not because she had any faith it would lead to more than an awkward dinner and maybe a bad first kiss.

Annie was the first person in three years that Quinn thought was...enough...to balance her out. She was confident, extroverted, smart enough to be an equal, and so beautiful that she knocked the wind out of her. She was the first date not to ask Quinn about her life before Yale. Quinn was grateful, and sensed it was because Annie had some of her own baggage; she talked about going to college in Colorado, but didn’t even hint at where she grew up. Both of their lives had started at eighteen, and that was enough common ground for Quinn to ask her on a second date.

Annie was accepted by every graduate program she applied to, and they both knew Quinn would follow her no matter where she went. She settled on Hunter College, and they moved less than a month after Quinn’s graduation. It didn’t take Quinn long to find a job as a corporate paralegal, and her income combined with Annie’s savings and teaching stipend was enough for them to afford a one bedroom apartment in Washington Heights. In the two years since, Quinn had met Annie’s “new, real” family. She longed to feel the amount of love the six of them shared, but Annie’s happiness was too genuine, too  _ healing _ , for Quinn to be jealous.

Slowly, they revealed more of their pasts to each other. They would sit on their fire escape and talk about things that were too big to fit in one bedroom. They began to trust that the other wouldn’t leave. Annie didn’t push for details about Beth, and Quinn trusted Annie to come to her if she ever felt tempted to relapse.

It felt like the most natural progression in the world when Annie proposed on their fourth anniversary.

That was two weeks ago, and Quinn still hasn’t told anyone. Annie told two of her Colorado friends, Troy and Abed, but made them promise not to tell the rest of their friends until Quinn’s comfortable with it. Even though they’ve been together long enough for Quinn to know that Annie’s need to share moments like this with as many people as possible comes from a place of deep insecurity and that her reluctance only validates that insecurity, but she hasn’t been comfortable putting her private life on display since she was sixteen. Every conversation has been draining for both of them; trust and mutual understanding only do so much to ease the ache of repeatedly exploring that kind of pain.

Quinn’s phone buzzes as her stop is announced, and the text makes her pause and smile long enough that she barely slips through the train doors.

_ I’m sorry I let you leave without saying I love you, so. I love you<3 _

_ *** _

The restaurant isn’t one Rachel would’ve chosen—the vegan options aren’t clearly labeled and the Christmas lights hanging from every inch of ceiling are beyond unflattering—but Bonnie is the one whose promotion they’re celebrating, so she just orders the vegetable samosas and hopes for the best.

“I would like to propose a toast,” Caroline begins. Bonnie groans, but Caroline pushes forward without acknowledging it. “A toast to my closest, oldest, most cherished and kick-ass friend, Bonnie Bennett. You work harder than anyone I’ve ever met, and I’m glad I didn’t have to kick your boss’s ass to get her to see it.”

They clink their beer bottles, and their “to Bonnie!” is loud enough for the next table over to applaud with them. Bonnie blushes, but her smile at Caroline is so bright that it makes Rachel’s chest ache.

She moved in with them almost exactly a year ago. Their friend Elena was still living with them when Caroline was hired as the second vocal coach at the school where Rachel has worked since college, but the stars managed to align for Elena to move out the month before Rachel’s lease ended. Bonnie and Caroline didn’t want to trust Craigslist, so Rachel moved in. 

She knows she’ll never be as close to them as they are to each other, but it only bothers her in moments like this.

To their credit, Bonnie and Caroline do their best to include her; they catch themselves if they get caught up in stories from their life in Mystic Falls, the Virginia town where they grew up. When they start their third beers, Rachel finishes her first and gets up to leave.

“I wish I could stay, but I have a long shift tonight.” She reaches into her purse, but Caroline waves in protest. Rachel smiles. “Thanks Caroline. And really, congratulations Bonnie. You deserve this.”

Rachel uses the money she had expected to use for dinner to take a cab back to their East Village apartment. She gets home with enough time to do her hair and makeup instead of just fixing her eyeliner and pulling her hair into a bun, but she lies down for a power-nap instead.  _ I have  _ three  _ jobs. I don’t need to give all my energy to all of them. _

It’s an attitude that would’ve horrified her in high school, but six years of the real world have changed her expectations. On good days, she sees it as a sign of maturity; on bad days, she thinks it’s a symptom of the exhaustion she hasn’t been able to shake since she left Lima.

She pulls on her work dress—black, fitted, tasteful—and makes a mental note to have it dry-cleaned before her next shift. She scrawls a reminder on a sticky note, slaps it her vanity mirror, and heads out.

She hostesses at a midtown restaurant three nights a week, bartends and waits tables at the tavern by her apartment twice a week, and teaches voice lessons at a private school every weekday; she can’t remember the last time she had two consecutive days off. She’s done the math and could drop hostessing and still make rent, but her future fund is a promise to herself, a vow to find her way back to who she could— _ should _ —have been.

Her train is less crowded than usual, so she risks sitting down even though her coat isn’t long enough to ensure her dress will stay clean. This is the job she’s had the longest; she remembers train rides from Chelsea, spent bookmarking potential auditions and studying for music history exams. Now, she answers work emails, deletes messages from Will, and reads biographies of performers when the first two tasks don’t exhaust her.

She hasn’t heard from Will in a few months, so she isn’t surprised to see a message in her inbox. She sighs quietly, and reads it.

_ Hey Rachel! _

_ Regionals is next week, and I’m sure you remember what that means! These kids have a real knack for classic rock (remind you of anyone :)?), but I can’t get them excited about finding a hip-hop number. I’m sure my best alum could show them it takes more than technique to *wow* the judges! And even if you can’t make it by then, you know you’re always welcome in my choir room. Maybe for nationals? _

_ All my (and Emma’s) best, _

_ Will _

For the first time in over a year, she doesn’t immediately archive it; she marks it as unread but puts it, and Glee Club, out of her mind as she gets off the train and walks the few blocks to work.

Dan, the only full-time employee who has been there less time than Rachel, is waiting with a coffee when she walks in. She smiles and her face warms slightly when she tastes that he has her order—soy, sugar-free vanilla latte with a pump of caramel—memorized. If they were in high school, this kind of attention to detail would earn him some kind of masculine equivalent to a promise ring and a few minutes of “under the shirt, over the bra” action. While she knows he wouldn’t be averse to the second part, she likes to think she’s outgrown her…well, Finn and Noah had called it clinginess, but she still lets herself think of it as enthusiasm.

“Where’d you just go?”

Dan’s voice snaps her back to present, to New York, to 24.

“High school,” she admits.

He laughs. “Well, that explains this.” He brushes his thumb over the crease between her eyebrows, then clears his throat nervously. “Ah, I’m...I’m sorry. I guess you’re not the only one back in high school. Although,” he winces, “honestly, I would’ve done that in college.”

She laughs nervously and fights the urge to make a rapid, awkward escape. They’re both visibly relieved when a party of ten comes in; the restaurant fills up, and they don’t have time to think about what’ll happen if he makes his long standing crush, which has so far been limited to coffee orders and smiley notes on her tip envelope, even more obvious.

His shift ends three hours later, and she wonders if he can read the  _ please don’t make me hurt you _ in their parting eye contact.


End file.
